Your Right to Know

The question of who is a “significant other” is rippling throughout county and state government
as more same-sex couples seek benefits.

There are no easy answers for Ohio public officials attempting to harmonize local policies with
a 2004 state constitutional ban on same-sex marriage and federal-government regulations that
increasingly favor providing domestic-partner benefits.

“It’s a complicated issue for counties,” said Suzanne Delaney, executive director of the County
Commissioners Association of Ohio. “They’re trying to follow the law, but first they’re trying to
figure out what the law is. A lot of people are scratching their heads.”

Franklin County is among those that provide domestic-partner benefits. In county policy, a
domestic partner is defined as “an adult with whom the employee shares a permanent residence, is in
a sole relationship for six months and intends to remain indefinitely, is not married to or legally
separated from another person, shares responsibility for each other’s common welfare.”

Columbus and other cities have their own civil-service systems and rules.

The bottom line of an Oct. 9 legal opinion issued by Attorney General Mike DeWine in response to
a Wayne County request was, “Counties, you’re on your own.”

DeWine noted that in the past, county officials relied on guidance from the Ohio Department of
Administrative Services, the business arm of state government. However, in 2007, the General
Assembly passed a civil-service-reform law that severed the tether between the state and counties
in that regard.

DeWine said Wayne County’s questions about potential conflicts with the state’s same-sex
marriage ban are moot since the state rules no longer apply.

Wayne County Prosecutor Daniel R. Lutz said he requested DeWine’s legal guidance to help with
rewriting the county’s sick-leave policy “in light of the addition of ‘significant others’ to the
state definition of immediate family.” Lutz said “the county had legal concerns whether it could
legally apply the new definition in light of the Ohio Constitution defining marriage as being
between one women and one man.”

Lutz asked what evidence the county could legally demand from an employee to prove the “
significant other” was a person who “stands in the place of a spouse and who resides with the
employee” as required by state code.

State union contracts have included the “significant other” language since 1986, when the first
labor agreements were negotiated under Ohio’s collective-bargaining law. The policy, later expanded
to cover nonunion employees, defines immediate family as “an employee’s spouse or significant other
(significant other as used in this definition means one who stands in place of a spouse and
who resides with the employee)” along with parents, children, grandparents, siblings and
others.

At the same time, the Ohio Constitution, Section 15.11, says the state and political
subdivisions “shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried
individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance or effect of
marriage."

That appears at odds with new U.S. Department of Labor guidance following the U.S. Supreme Court’/
/ / / s June 26 ruling striking down part of the federal Defense of Marriage Act. Labor officials
said marriage should now include “same-sex couples legally married in any state or foreign
jurisdiction that recognizes such marriages, regardless of where they currently live.”

The leader of one Ohio gay-rights group said changes are badly needed to clear up confusion.

“This issue is representative of so many family-security issues that are raised in Ohio where
marriage equality is forbidden,” said Ian James, co-founder of Freedom Ohio. “The best way to
answer this thorny question is to respect the worth and value of all Ohioans, and provide equal
access to the strongest form of family protection by permitting the freedom to marry.”